THE RITUAL FOR SIN AFTER CONVERSION
1
"He that is bathed needeth not save
to wash his feet", (John 13: 10).
Baptism is the first and total bathing
to which the Saviour refers: it answers to the total uncleanness of man by
nature. It exhibits in a figure the
great and general forgiveness of past sin which is granted by the Father to all
that believe in Jesus. As though the
Saviour said:- The past is blotted out and forgiven
freely. But you have offended since that
day; and fresh sin has stained your conscience. You need then a second and supplementary
washing, that you may be wholly clean. Such
is the washing of your feet. The first
washing was total; for sin entirely possessed you by nature,
This second washing is partial, as
your sins now are occasional. You sinned
willingly before, with head and hand. You
sin involuntarily now, as the bather coming up from the bath unwillingly
gathers on his feet the dust and dirt that defile them. "That which I do
I allow not; for what I would that do I not; but what I hate, that do I."
"Now then
it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in
me." "The good that I would I do not but the evil which I would
not, that I do." (
Thus,
while the total defilement of man as a sinner is set forth
in the total immersion of the believer once for all; the partial
and unwilling uncleanness of the saint is set forth in
the second and succeeding washing. It is intended to teach that daily sin demands
a daily cleansing, even after our old sins are purged and put away. The intercession of Jesus to this end, and His ceaseless washing are continually needed.*
- ROBERT GOVETT.
[*
It is sometimes said, with careless boldness, that it was a customary thing for
the master to wash the guests’ feet, in eastern countries. Not one instance of it can be found in
Scripture. The following
are all the passages in which the thing is spoken of Abraham and
2
Our
Lord, having finished washing their feet, resumes his garments, sits down
again, and now addresses the disciples: - "Know ye
what I have done to you? Ye call me
Teacher, and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, have
washed your feet, YE ALSO OUGHT TO WASH ONE ANOTHER’S FEET. For I have given you AN EXAMPLE THAT YE
ALSO SHOULD DO AS I HAVE DONE TO YOU. ... If ye know these things, blessed
are ye if ye do them."
How
we can do them, without doing them, it is very difficult to say. He has just asked His disciples to do for one
another now, that which He did for His disciples then. For two
centuries Satan failed to succeed in leading away the disciples from this
ordinance. Nineteen hundred years
have rolled round since the night of the supper. The cycle of time to be
completed by the Second Advent will soon
enable those who now "wash one another’s feet"
for Jesus’ sake, to link up the circle of the past intervening years with those
Christians of the first centuries, and to stand with them on the same ground to
share in the "part with" Christ.
It
is beautiful to see also in this instance the Old Testament returning its
borrowed light to the Scriptures of the New. In his delineation of the
ceremonies in connection with the consecration of the Priests, the Holy Ghost
wrote by the hand of Moses those commands which the God of Israel gave to
- CHAS. S. UTTING.
3
So
important is the after-cleansing of the believer that our Lord has enshrined
the truth for ever in the loveliest of rites. "He that is bathed," He says (John 13: 10), "needeth not save to wash
his feet, but [if he do both] is
clean every whit." A bather,
totally immersed, is completely cleansed; but, coming up from river or seashore,
his feet get soiled afresh: so, after our total plunge, our complete immersion,
in the pardon of God, our perfect cleansing in the blood of Christ, we contract
inevitable defilement in our contact with earth, and need the washing
of the walk. No apostle was omitted as perfect in walk. "Our works may
be compared to the soul’s feet: the Church will never be so clean that it will
have no need of foot-washing" (Spurgeon).
Coming up from the great pardon at
conversion, and coming up ritually out of the baptismal flood, we come up fully
bathed, spotlessly clean; for "ye were washed" (1 Cor. 6: 11): but now, over even apostles’ feet, our
High Priest has to stoop in tender ablution and absolution of post-baptismal
sin. "Justification
must be followed by sanctification" (Lange). So baptism is the
first portrayal by ritual; "arise, and be baptized,
and wash away thy sins" (Acts 22: 16): our Lord now institutes a
supplementary rite to portray the covering of post-conversion sin; "I have washed your feet."
While
extra-Biblical tradition is no basis whatever for our faith or conduct,
evidence that the acceptance of our Lord’s words as indicating a rite is not an
individual idiosyncrasy may justly be offered, on behalf of an interpretation
which, through ignorance of church history, may seem new-fangled and peculiar. The Greek
church has preserved it, together with immersion
in baptism, from the apostolic age. Of
the four so-called ‘doctors of the Church’, two
- Ambrose and Augustine - taught and practised it, and in the sub-apostolic age
"the ceremony (says Bingham’s Christian
Antiquities) was used by some churches, but
rejected by others." As late
as the fifth century Augustine says:- "Brethren perform this
action one for another. Among some
saints the custom exists not, but they do it in heart; but much better and more
exact is it, beyond controversy, that it be done by
the hand." Bernard, called ‘the last of the Fathers’ is equally explicit:- "That we may not doubt
concerning the remission of daily sins, we have its sacrament - the Washing of
Feet." The Council of Toledo (A.D. 694) fixed an
annual date when the feet of the newly baptized were washed. Luther
was not averse to it. Nor are the Moravians the only modern group to
observe the rite. One of the giant
intellects of modern days, foremost in the ranks of science - Faraday - was (with many an obscure
disciple through many ages and in many lands) a humble follower of this ritual
of ablution. "Many humble Christian societies
have adopted this view, and still we find that some devout people are earnest
for it"
-
C. Stanford, D.D.
Peter’s
impetuous blunders are used by the Spirit to set all in a radiant light. He says: "Lord,
dost thou wash my feet?" He
does not see the cross in the basin, nor the blood in
the water. "Thou shalt never wash my feet." Our Lord’s answer startlingly reveals our need
of the pardon of all sin, whether before conversion or after. "If I wash thee
not" - if pardon does not touch you at all - "thou hast no part with Me":
without the great ablution, there is no life eternal; and without the
partial ablution, there is no reward at the Judgment Seat: justification
and sanctification are both essential for a full participation with Christ. Christ does not say that, once washed, no kind
of washing can be needed again; nor does He say that, once soiled, no fresh
washing is possible. Peter, still
misunderstanding, now passes to the opposite extreme:-
"Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my
head."* "Peter
was thoughtlessly demanding the repetition of his baptism" (Godet). Jesus again corrects the error. "He that is
bathed needeth not save to wash his feet."
"The foot needeth to be washed; but the totality of the cleanness is
not lost" (B. W. Newton).
The first cleansing is total and final,
involving our whole nature, and, up to that moment, a perfect bath, unrepeated
and unrepeatable justification is for ever; it is one baptism
(Eph. 4: 5) but for sanctification,
continual and progressive, a partial cleansing is required for partial sin.
- D. M. PANTON.
[* Thus a believer’s cleansing depends wholly on
his own consent to Christ’s action. This
negatives B. W. Newton:- "When they [all
believers] enter their Father’s presence, each foot
will have been perfectly washed." Numerous scriptures (such as Matt. 18: 35; Luke 12: 47; 2 Cor.
5: 10; Col. 3: 24-25; 1 John 2: 28; Rev. 3: 3, 16, etc.) make sure the
shame of some disciples after the resurrection, when a
sharper chastisement will bring a belated repentance, and a cleansing that will
be final. Of one sin our Lord says :- "It shall
not be forgiven him, neither in this age, nor in that
[age] which is to come" (Matt. 12: 32): from which it may justly be
inferred that certain other sins (obviously of believers only) will require and
receive a future forgiveness in the Age that succeeds to this.]
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